Mile Marker 146
by Fido the Finch
Summary: The front windshield was shattered, the safety glass like sand pooled on the ceiling of the car. The bottom of Tim's stomach dropped out when he realized it was raining upside-down.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is written for Bad Things Happen Bingo on tumblr, for the prompt 'vehicular accident.' There is some swearing, but no graphic depiction of injury.**

The sound came in muddled, an itch at the edge of his consciousness. Something loud and panicked. Something—

"Tim!"

Tim's eyes shot open the way only a Bat's could. He reflexively took stock of his immediate surroundings. It was dark in the interior of the car, but that was at least partially because it was nighttime. The front windshield was shattered, the safety glass like sand pooled on the ceiling of the car. The bottom of Tim's stomach dropped out when he realized it was raining upside-down.

Dick was hanging by his seatbelt on the driver's side of the car. One forearm rested on the ceiling below him, and Tim couldn't see the other but saw from Dick's shoulder movements that he was pushing furiously at something. When he saw Tim's eyes open, his breath caught. "Thank God. Where are you hurt?"

Tim's back and shoulders ached like they did when he was thrown into a wall. Judging by the cement road barrier in his window, the deduction was not that far off. The seatbelt dug into his neck and clavicle, but when he shifted, sparks of pain flared from the right side of his body. His window—the glass was missing, probably embedded somewhere in Tim's head and neck. A fine spray of rain bounced off the road barrier and into his face, helping bring him back to more complete awareness.

"Tim?" Dick's voice was hoarse and not hiding his panic very well.

It took a few tries for Tim to get his tongue to settle in the right position to slur, "What happened?"

He reached up to check his neck for shards of glass, but Dick's hand intercepted. "No, don't touch." Then he twisted in his seat, using two forearms on the ceiling beneath—above?—him as leverage. But his seatbelt caught, pinning him back. "Damian!"

Tim's focus shot to the back of the car. How had he forgotten about the third rider? The car's ceiling was partially collapsed, and the car was balanced at an angle so the ceiling was a gentle slope down to the windshield. Dick couldn't see or reach from his seat, but Tim could make out the dark silhouette of a small body on the ceiling, caught at the back of Dick's seat. Softly wheezing.

"He's breathing," Tim managed to get out. "But something's wrong."

Dick beat his fists on the ceiling. "Shit!" He fumbled with his seatbelt release, but Tim pressed a hand to his chest to stop him.

"No, Dick, your leg."

Dick glanced up to where his left leg disappeared between the dashboard and bent door; a hollow that shouldn't exist. His brow furrowed. "I didn't notice."

That wasn't a good sign.

"I'll go," Tim said. Before Dick could protest he released the catch on his seatbelt and landed head-first in the shattered glass on the ceiling. "Ow."

Dick hissed in a breath. "Tim—"

"It's okay. I'm okay," Tim mumbled in response. He was trying to get his bearings straight, unused to traversing flipped cars. It took ten seconds to extract his legs from above the dashboard, and another twenty to breathe through the black spots creeping into his vision.

"You're _not_ okay. I—I need to call somebody," Dick said. He reached into his pockets but they were empty. "Do you see my phone anywhere?"

Tim felt in his own pockets and procured his high-tech piece of technology. The screen was shattered; he could use his fingerprint to unlock it but it was useless for dialing. Disgusted, he threw it so it landed on top of the dashboard, out of sight. "No luck," he hissed.

Dick called to Damian, trying to reach around his seat. Tim got his legs beneath himself with grit teeth. His knees and hips protested every move he made, and there was a particularly sharp pain from his left shin. But Damian's wheezing was steadily getting faster, and Tim didn't want to waste time on bruised joints and broken bones.

With a bit of help from Dick, he wriggled between the two front seats toward the back of the car. Damian was folded nearly in half, his back on the ceiling and the tops of his feet pressed into the back of Dick's seat. Tim allowed himself a breath of relief when he saw the angle of Damian's spine. It didn't look like the kid had landed on his head, and it didn't look like he had injured his spine. If he had—there would be nothing they could do.

"Damian," Tim called. The boy didn't stir. Tim couldn't see well in this light, and he was beginning to realize his eyes were having trouble focusing, but there was no mistaking the wet blood trailing through the smaller boy's hair. Tim carded through it carefully with one hand and was relieved when he didn't find any penetration wounds. Damian's backpack was nowhere to be found, and who knows what the kid could have been carrying with him when they wrecked.

"Blunt force trauma," he announced to Dick.

"His breathing—check his pulse," Dick replied. His voice lacked the usual calmness that accompanied triage.

Tim used his less-bloody hand to check Damian's pulse. The younger boy's hands were clammy. "His heart is beating too fast. I think he's gone into shock."

Dick cursed from the front, beating a fist against his car door. There was another car there, blocking the window and effectively locking the door shut. Still, Dick stopped his banging long enough to shout, "We need help! There's a kid—there are kids in here!"

Tim didn't know if anybody could hear them. He didn't remember where they were, or what caused the crash. But he knew how to treat shock.

"I need a blanket. Or a jacket. Something warm."

Dick looked helplessly around the front of the car. There was nothing. "Use my shirt," he said instead.

"I can get mine off more easily—"

"You'll end up slicing your jugular with that glass. Don't." It was a bit of an exaggeration, but it didn't stop Dick from starting the painful process of shimmying out of his clothing. Now that he was aware of his leg he could apparently feel it. Every jostle made him hiss through grit teeth, and Tim could do nothing but clench his hands into fists helplessly. Still, Dick barely winced when he tossed the shirt over his shoulder. "Here."

Tim nodded numbly, not caring that Dick couldn't see him. Carefully, he slid Damian around so he was lying flat, lengthwise, on the ceiling. He propped Damian's heels on the top ledge of the window so his feet were elevated slightly. Dick's shirt was draped across his torso in a vain attempt to keep him warm.

Still, Damian's breath was coming short, making that awful whistling sound.

"I don't know what else to do," Tim said. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping him awake, he was sure.

Dick scrubbed his face with both hands. "You're doing great, Tim."

There was nothing else to do but wait.

Tim sat back onto his butt to relieve some of the pressure on his hands, and the angle change meant a glint of light caught the screen of Damian's phone. Its screen was cracked, but he could count the number of fault lines in it if he had tried. So he pulled it out, tapped the screen, and to his amazement it flooded the back with light.

"You found a phone?" Dick asked.

"Yeah." The opening screen had an emergency contact quick-call button, but when Tim tapped it nothing happened. "You try. I think my hands are too. . . wet."

Dick reached back blindly for the phone and Tim placed it in his hand. Then they both held their breath.

" _911\. What is the nature of your emergency?"_

Tim wanted to sob with relief.

Dick did it for him. "Car wreck. There are two kids with me, one of them is unconscious. His breathing is bad."

" _Are you in the car?"_

Dick's fingers flexed over the steering wheel. "Yes."

" _What is your location?"_

"We're on the highway, eastbound, just outside mile marker 146."

" _Somebody has already been dispatched. A passerby called it in."_

"A passerby?" Dick stuck his fingers out the window again. "Hey! We're over here! We need help!"

" _Sir? I need you to listen. You said there are two kids in the car. Is that everybody?"_

Tim was losing his battle to stay focused on the present. His mind was drifting away from the conversation. The only visible part of the other car was the bottom, and he mentally catalogued the damage he could see to its mechanics. The car was leaning on its driver's side. The driver was probably dead.

It was at this thought that Tim fell backward, losing his battle with gravity. Immediately, Dick's hands were in his face, behind his head to cushion his fall. "Tim, stay with me. You can't pass out again."

Tim groaned, eyes blinking rapidly to try and stop the spinning car.

" _Sir? I need you to keep talking to me."_ The phone was on the ceiling next to Tim, dropped in Dick's haste to catch him.

Dick took several deliberately deep breaths, but Tim didn't know if it was Bruce's meditation technique or if it was to counteract the effects of hanging upside down for so long. Finally, Dick muttered, "Just a sec," in to the phone and pushed it aside so he could put a hand on either side of Tim's face, deftly avoiding the glass.

"Tim, she said you need to monitor Damian's breathing and pulse."

Tim nodded but couldn't make himself move to sit up again.

"Tim," Dick repeated. His rough voice sank into a lower register, nearly imitating Batman. "Monitor Damian." He accompanied this with a careful push toward upright.

Tim sluggishly found Damian's pulse on his jugular. He held two fingers there and counted.

Dick didn't pick the phone up again, but instead switched it to speaker phone.

" _Sir? Can you tell me what happened?"_

Dick turned back toward Tim. "Tim, do you know what happened?" It was a typical tactic to keep victims awake.

"97 beats per minute," Tim announced. "No, I don't remember anything."

" _97 is within normal range,"_ the person on the speaker said.

Dick and Tim made worried eye contact. "He's an athlete," Dick explained. "His resting heart rate is usually pretty low."

" _An ambulance will reach you in ten minutes. Can you tell me what happened?"_ She must have thought Dick was starting to drift, too.

"It's raining," Dick started, distractedly. "The other car was going too fast. I saw them change lanes, but they lost control of their car."

If Tim stretched, he thought he remembered a silver car fishtailing on the road in front of them, Dick's hand slammed protectively into his chest.

But he could just be fabricating the memory.

"I didn't react fast enough," Dick whispered. "I didn't move out of the way, and now—" he gulped, looking meaningfully at the other car.

" _Can you see the other driver?"_

Dick's eyes shut. "No, but he's gone."

" _How—"_

"I could hear him, but. . . he's been quiet for a while now. I think something stabbed him, he was crying about pain in his stomach. . ."

A shudder ran up Tim's spine. He knew Dick well enough to know he would have been trying to keep him calm. It would have killed him to be unable to do anything. He reached out and set a hand on top of Dick's, where he was trying to use his forearms to relive some of the pressure on his shoulders and leg.

Almost reflexively, Dick closed his hand around Tim's. His lips pressed into a thin line. "You're too cold," he muttered. Both hands closed around his one and rubbed together, trying to get warmth into his fingers. Tim wasn't paying attention.

Because Damian's breath had hitched. The unconscious boy's face screwed up and let loose a terribly weak, wet cough. Something flecked the side of Tim's face. He didn't have to see the look of horror on Dick's face to know what it was.

"Fuck."

" _What is it? What's happened?"_

"He's coughing up blood. He's bleeding internally."

" _Don't panic, help will be there in a few more minutes."_

Dick growled, his hands clenching tight around Tim's before abruptly letting go. "We don't have that much time."

Tim's brain was too slow to catch up with what was happening. The lady on the phone was saying something, pleading with them to stay put. Dick was fumbling with something, and one second he was hanging upside-down, and the next he was lying on the ceiling.

Damian coughed again, and this time Dick was there, gently moving Tim to the side so he could turn Damian's head to the side. "Come on, Dami. Hang in there," he muttered. Tim's eyes fixated on his older brother's hands. They were shaking.

He didn't realize he had shut his eyes until Dick was hoisting him up by one shoulder. "No no no, Tim, you can't pass out on me, too."

Tim nodded dully, and in his defense he did try to keep his eyes open.

But it wasn't until a flashlight shone in his face that he realized their rescue had arrived.

"Hey, kid, can you move at all?" She was talking through the gap in the window between the cars. There wasn't a bigger one.

Tim thought he nodded, but then Dick made some sort of choked noise.

"It's okay, sir. His eyes are open and responsive. He's going to be okay."

"What about Damian? He can't breathe. There's something wrong with his lungs."

The woman with the flashlight disappeared for a second to talk to other people. Tim felt one of Dick's hands gently rubbing circles on his back.

Then she reappeared. "I'm going to stay down here, with you. We're going to move the barrier and cut one of the back doors off to get you out. It's going to be okay, stay calm."

The circles on his back got harder.

Tim remembered something, then. It took all of his concentration to get his tongue to move the right way. "His leg, he can't get out the back."

Dick's hand on his back stilled at the sound of his voice. "Tim?"

The flashlight searched down each boy's body, looking for what he was talking about. That's when Tim saw, through the glass sand and the gap between his own legs, Dick's mangled leg, settled in yet another puddle of blood.

"Oh," he said. It was the last thing he could get out before the world went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I know it's short, but this is proof I didn't kill anybody ;)**

When he opened his eyes again, he knew from the smell that he was in a hospital. There was something tugging at the inside of the bend in his elbow, and something else tapping a rhythmic pattern into his thigh. With great effort, he forced his eyes to open against the bright light in the room.

The tugging was coming from a nurse, removing an IV from Tim's arm. The tapping was coming from Dick. His fingers were never still, and it was always worse when he was nervous. His hair was clean, free of glass and sweat and dirty rainwater. There were a few small bandages on his face and peppering his arms. A large, dark purple bruise was _just_ visible under the neckline of his hospital gown and the jacket he wore over it. Despite all of this, the older boy was wearing an almost flirtatious expression, the one Tim recognized from charity balls and galas. He laughed at something the nurse said.

All for show.

Tim must have made a sound, because Dick's eyes shot up from the bed to meet his. He smiled, and even in Tim's still-arriving-consciousness he knew it was strained. "You're awake." Dick removed his hands to roll himself closer to Tim.

"You're in a wheelchair."

"Yup." Dick pointed to his left leg. It was resting horizontally in front of him, heavily bandaged and with a metal brace strapped on. "I have a battery ram attached to me for the time being."

The nurse was leaving the room, but they both heard her snort.

Dick's voice got soft. "How are you?"

Tim lazily gestured to the hospital bed he was lying in. "Could be worse. Could be better." The corners of Tim's mouth lifted, then dropped again. "Damian?"

Dick reached for Tim's hand. It was finally clean of Damian's blood. "He was rushed to surgery when we got here. Collapsed lung."

Tim sucked in a breath.

"They say he's going to be okay." His hold tightened minutely. "He's a fighter."

Tim wanted to roll his eyes. "Some would say that's an understatement."

It startled Dick enough that his grip softened again. His smile got a little more genuine.

The phone in his lap dinged. Dick didn't have to read the message to know who it was. "Bruce is on his way." He released Tim's hand long enough to pick up the phone. "He'll want to know that you're awake."

Before Tim could protest, Dick leaned in and held the phone up so both of them were in frame. He could only catch a quick glimpse of himself in the screen, so it took another second to process all of the bandages he saw on his face and neck and the bruising covering his head. Then Dick snapped the selfie and pulled away to get it sent again. Tim was left blinking. He reached a careful hand up to press against the coverings. There were sutures there. Probably from where they had had to pull out the glass.

Dick gently redirected his hands back into his lap. "Don't—" and cut himself off, doubtlessly because he was remembering the last time he had had to say it. Instead, he deflected. "That was Bruce." His forehead wrinkled. "The press knows."

Tim groaned. "That's almost worse than the wreck."

Dick patted the upper portion of his bandaged leg. "You know, if all else fails, you can put me in the lead to knock people out of the way."

Tim pushed himself up so he could get a better look at it. "How long do you have to wear that thing?" He felt the implied _this is what you get for being a self-sacrificing idiot_ was pretty clear.

Dick was unrepentant. "Six weeks, doctor's orders." So, four weeks, tops. "We'll match."

Tim looked down his bed and eyes on his own leg, wrapped in a hard cast. He hadn't noticed until Dick pointed it out—they must have him on the good stuff. He gave it an experimental roll to get a good look at the angle. "At least mine isn't past my knee. I can probably get away with crutches. Or a scooter."

Dick's thumb rubbed circles on the back of his hand. He let himself relax into that comforting sensation.

"I'm sorry," Dick blurted out of nowhere.

He had known it was coming. "It wasn't your fault."

He grunted. "I know, but I should have done something. I haven't been sleeping enough, so my reaction wasn't fast enough—"

"Nope," Tim said, not even bothering to open his eyes. "Don't start that. You couldn't have known that was going to happen."

"The other driver died."

Tim did crack one eye open at that. Dick looked _broken_. "You did everything that you could."

Dick looked down at the bedsheets. "It wasn't enough."

Tim closed his hand around Dick's, squeezing until he got his attention. "Short of gaining super-strength and moving an entire car by yourself, there's nothing else you could have done. You can't always save everyone."

Dick didn't reply. He leaned his head against Tim's bed. They stayed like that, just resting in the peace of knowing the other was safe, until the doctor came looking for Dick, who apparently had slipped out of his room without being cleared. When he saw them together, he didn't say anything, just shut the door before leaving.

Healing would take time, Tim knew. But for now, everything was okay.


End file.
